Grow a Garden in Your Window

Tomatoes, crispy lettuce, green beans, and crunchy peppers. While we wait for warmer weather in the Northeast, I'm thinking about what veggies I can grow this year.

We have a tiny yard but lots of window space, so I was intrigued when I read about urban indoor gardening. Window Farms are DIY hydroponic mini gardens that hang in your home and let you grow low-cost produce.

A short video here gives you the idea, though the sight of water cascading from great heights did make me a little nervous. Apparently it worked without incident, despite the drama. You can also check out an impressive, huge Window Farm installation.

If creating an indoor farm from recycled containers sounds scary, start small with Epicurious's Windowsill Gardening guide and get step-by-step instructions for nurturing fragrant herbs in containers. There's nothing like snipping fresh herbs right from your kitchen sill into the pot.

Home-owners with huge yards, fear not: We've all the info you need to start your own vegetable garden and enjoy fresh, delicious produce.

Are you an avid garden or a green-thumb wannabe? Any tips for clever ways to grow food in containers?

I have to wonder about the chemicles in the plastic bottle/containers exuding toxins into the food.
I grow a huge garden in the summer months on the south side of my home. I grow the food next to the foundation which gets direct sunlight most of the day and radiates that heat on to the garden. I live in New England so I am used to rainy days, fungus, rot and low sunight. I can not grow much indoors because the windows that face south are bedrooms for my teenagers. My kitchen windows are small and face east + are very cold. My sister lives in a city nearby but has huge 12 foot high windows in an old Victorian home that is perfect for starting seeds. She and I co-op garden, my land and I get the horse doodoo and we both cultivate and grow her plants and share the crop. Plus it's helpful to have some one share the work load of weeding and picking.
Some of what I grow: Grape leaves, peaches, tomatoes, carrots, beets, green beans, peas, parsely, mint and other types of herbs. Can't beat fresh herbs. Can't wait.

SandyinTX
05:33:52 PM on
02/22/10

I dunno about the hydroponics - seems to me they take more attention than plants-in-soil. But window-greenhouses (the glass-all-around bay window jutting out from the window frame) have been around for a while, and they seem to work. At least 2 manufacturers have been putting ads for them in Organic Gardening magazine for years. They have this over a windowsill: light comes in at the top and sides, as well as the front.
If you have NO sunlight at all, you might need to rig a grow-light (or a 2-fluorescent-tube fixture, one "warm" and one "cool" light. You can grow sprouts without light, but as far as I know that's about it.

pyromaniackitty
02:10:31 PM on
02/22/10

I would love to have a window garden but I get ZERO sun. I tried last year and all of my herbs died within two weeks. :-( Any advice for this problem?